It would have been easy, so easy, soconvenient,to ignore Enya’s words as jealousy or misguided advice.
Deep inside, if she really thought about it, she knew Enya was right.
Isla was almost done portaling the rest of the civilians. By tomorrow, only warriors would be left on Lightlark.
She was walking across the Star Isle bridge when she got the feeling she was being followed.
She focused on the ground beneath her, and she could sense the footsteps far away. Walking. Waiting.
She was about to be ambushed. She knew it, and she understood that only one group of people would be so bold, so close to the day of battle.
Isla let them capture her.
She braced herself, and the strings on the other side of the bridge snapped. It swooped down like a pendulum, and a force plucked her from the air, into a carved opening in the side of the Mainland cliff. The ones who had been following her swung in after her.
She rolled inside, her ribs screaming in protest as she tumbled before nearly hitting a wall.
When she opened her eyes, a dozen red masks looked back at her.
She smiled. “I don’t think this is going to go the way you’re hoping,” she said. Then, she twisted her fingers, and the ground grew teeth, trapping them all against the ceiling. She hadn’t killed them.
Not yet.
“Wait,” someone said. One of them fought to get their arm out between the ceiling and rock, to remove their mask. “Before you kill us, please just listen.”
Isla didn’t listen. She lashed out, the ground beneath her shook—
The person got their mask off, and Isla went very still.
“Maren,” she said.
Isla imagined she look crazed. Another Starling she had trusted, betraying her—
“How could you?” she asked, voice shaking. Maren had Cinder. She was aleader.
She had tried to kill her—
“We didn’t mean to hurt you before,” the Starling said quickly. “The Moonling who performed that did not consider the fact that you might ... drag across the balcony. It was supposed to be simple—”
“What do you want?” Isla demanded. “You have five seconds to explain before I bring this cave down all around us.”
“Do you agree with the system of rule, Isla? You each make decisions that affect us all, whether you intend them to or not. The system of rule is a curse. Our lives being tied together is a curse.”
“No.” Her answer was immediate. She didn’t think it was fair that rulers were born with the bulk of power. “That’s why I’m implementing a democracy on Star Isle.”
Maren nodded. “We heard, and we appreciate it,” she said. “But the current system of rule goes beyond just votes and voices. We have all historically been tied to rulers’ lives, because of the power they alone channel. Do you know why, Isla?”
She shook her head.
“Because thousands of years ago, the king’s ancestors had a Nightshade create a series of curses called nexus, designed to keep the people weak. Everyone—except for his line—was cursed to only be born with a single ability. And people were cursed to be tied to their rulers, so power could never be overthrown. Nexus was meant to keep us all weak. Subservient. Loyal.”
Nexus? She had never heard of it. “How do you know any of this?”
“History was buried. It took centuries for our group to finally gather this information. It started during the curses. You six were the stars of the Centennial, but we regular islanders also worked to break them. We learned that it used to be possible for a person to denounce their power and leave a realm.”
Isla thought about the Vinderland and the serpent-woman, who had left Wildling many centuries ago.
“We believed that if we could figure out how they did it, we could give up our powers and not be bound to the curses. It was a sacrifice many of us were more than willing to make. That led to researching why the ties between the people and their rulers existed in the first place.
